


the twists and turns of pack negotiations

by halfwheeze



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Stiles Stilinski, Emissary Derek Hale, Gen, Lots of OCs - Freeform, M/M, Pack Bonding, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Pack Feels, Queerplatonic Relationships, Spark Stiles Stilinski, this is basically a big pack fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 00:45:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17090879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: A spark alpha and a werewolf emissary, Stiles and Derek make a strange pair, though not one they would change. Things get… interesting, though, when outsiders get things all wrong, as they never fail to do.





	the twists and turns of pack negotiations

**Author's Note:**

> Listen kids, this is a trainwreck. I know it's a trainwreck. Read the trainwreck knowing it's a trainwreck and maybe at least you'll like the scenery.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

There’s a rush to get things done somewhere in the hour between ten and eleven, Stiles rushing everyone out of the pack house with everything sans prepacked lunches. He mother hens them as he always does, makes sure they forget nothing and want nothing. He has to run through a mental checklist to make sure all of them are okay, just avoiding counting them off on his fingers by the skin of his teeth. He looks to his pack while they’re all still out in the yard instead of sardined into cars, going over all of them in his mind. He knows that neither Jackson nor Lydia will be in attendance due to a charity event for Lydia’s company, so he checks them off before beginning. 

Scott has his fidget toys, Isaac has the water bottle he likes to play with, Erica and Boyd have each other; they’ve never needed much else. Cora and Malia lean against each other outside, each clad in one of Stiles’s jackets and thus the smell of the entire pack. Kira is holding Malia’s hand, internalizing any anxiety she might feel about the meeting like a champ. Allison doesn’t have any weapons on her but a knife in each boot, Stiles makes sure; he won’t take away everything that makes her feel safe, but he doesn’t want the other pack to feel threatened either. Derek stands closest to Stiles, trying not to be obvious in his scenting of the air (he fails by a mile like he always does at home). He can feel the anxiety in all of them, and tries to send out good vibes of his own. Scott’s responding smile and Derek’s lackadaisical grin at least show that they can feel him trying. 

“Everyone ready?” Stiles asks, even though he knows. He receives the nods he expected augmented with sparse, tense laughter and the rolling of eyes. He finds it minutely reassuring that all of them are at least responsive; if anyone knows how bad meeting another pack can go, it’s Stiles. He loves his pack, but that doesn’t mean that every other group of ragtag werewolves will be so great. 

The pack they’re meeting today is the baby pack eighty miles north, far enough away that they aren’t a direct threat, but it’s never a bad idea to make friends. Derek is wearing one of his nice shirts, though the leather jacket spread over it is old, fits like a glove. It’s the one he had when Stiles was still in high school, though it’s been long enough now that Stiles doesn’t remember the blur between sophomore and senior other than werewolves and barely keeping his grades up. He doesn’t say anything, knowing how much Derek would rather not talk to another pack at all, but he’s the calm one between the two of them, the one with the most interpersonal skills. Derek is the Hufflepuff to Stiles’s Slytherin, if that spot wasn’t already taken by Scott. Scott is the Hufflepuff to Isaac’s Ravenclaw and Allison’s Slytherin, now. Stiles shakes his head to clear it and leaves too, locking the door behind the lot of them.

“Ready to go, Jay?” Derek asks, having stopped on the porch to wait for him, ever the gracious boyfriend. Derek had asked, years ago, to know Stiles’s actual first name (which is Jarogniew), but after deciding it was too hard to pronounce, gave him a second nickname. Stiles doesn’t really mind the nickname; sometimes, when nightmares come and he needs to be reassured that Derek is there, he loves it. No one else calls him Jay, no one else holds him close and whispers it into his ear, no one else  _ knows  _ him like Derek does. It’s a strange thing, to be known like that. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be. You ready?” Stiles asks in return, bumping Derek’s shoulder to get him moving. One car could never hold the entire pack, but two can, so Malia and Cora will be riding with Stiles and Derek while Erica, Boyd, Allison, Kira, Isaac and Scott all pile into Scott’s van. Kira never minds being separated from Malia so she can be with her family, and it always strikes Stiles as honorable. 

The camaro isn’t as new and cool as it was when Stiles was in high school, but now the memories in the car make him reluctant to ask Derek to give it up. Hell, the jeep is still in their garage, a skeleton of a car with the engine strewn across the room haphazardly. Derek climbs into the driver’s side and Stiles climbs in passenger, familiar and calming on this anxious day. Malia and Cora climb in behind them, Malia behind Stiles with her familiar hand on his shoulder, and Cora behind her brother so she can keep an eye on him. The routine of it all is settling in its own right, Malia’s hand on his shoulder as well as Derek’s in his over the gearshift. Scott waits for them to leave first and follows, though he knows just as well as anyone where they’re going. Deaton’s is still a neutral place, even if the veterinarian isn’t an emissary anymore. 

The drive is silent besides the music rolling out of the speakers, one of Cora’s discs from  a couple of years ago that both Stiles and Derek grew attached to. Cora is singing along softly, her head on her cousin’s shoulder not as to sing in her ear but just to lean. Stiles lets her contentedness roll over him like a wave, magnifying it to the rest of the pack. He knows that Cora feels honored he chose her emotions to emulate, to spread through his magical ties with them all. He can feel that too. Derek’s smiling in his small way when they pull into the parking lot forty minutes early, and all of them get out of the car to set up. The northern pack had requested to meet at midnight on the new moon like some kind of old school horror movie, but Stiles won’t let tradition go to shit. 

The pizza is being delivered in thirty minutes, because he’s a good host, damn it, and even ameteur hour werewolves who try to pull some two bit Twilight shit deserve  _ Greetings! _ pizza from the local 24-hour place. Scott opens the door with the key Deaton entrusted in him as long ago as any of them like to remember, holding it open for the rest of them. He’s always been like this, and Stiles is still proud of him all the same. 

“Is everyone good and present?” Stiles asks, making eye contact with every member of the pack to make sure.  _ Present  _ never means what it sounds like, a masquerade for his worry about wandering minds. All of them have a bad place to get stuck in within themselves, and it’s his job as their alpha to keep them out of it. His own bad places can mostly be avoided by mothering the lot of them, the tragic honesty of it. Derek slings an arm around his shoulders and steers him into the office they usually use for meetings. 

“I am your alpha, young man, and I will not be handled in such a fashion!” Stiles gives a token protest, tucking his face into Derek’s shoulder. “Asshole,” he says quietly, pressing a kiss against Derek’s neck while the emissary puts a hand in his hair, stroking it as if to calm him. Stiles won’t admit even to himself that it’s working, causing him to melt into Derek’s shoulder with little to no hesitation. Derek is scent marking him, beautifully obvious as he grips the bottom of Stiles’s shirt with his free hand. Stiles brings up a hand and grabs Derek’s chin, pulling them both out of their former stance. He prompts Derek with only a look, a quick way to get information out of the other. 

“I hate meeting new packs. They’re going to have old ideas and say shitty things and I can’t hurt them because they don’t fucking know better,” Derek provides, the words out of his mouth only a moment before he’s smothering his face in Stiles’s neck again. Stiles allows it this time, pulling Derek into himself and wrapping his arms around the other in turn. They break apart a little when Isaac comes in, allowing the younger wolf into their circle easily. Isaac’s soft happiness flows through the rest of the pack and they join in on the hug as well, Malia and Kira wrapping around each other and Stiles’s back. Cora hugs her brother from behind, holding hands with Isaac while two of Isaac’s own datemates hug his back. Nobody besides Stiles and Derek really know  _ why  _ they’re hugging, but they don’t mind. They stay like that for a few minutes, just settling in being close to one another. 

“We have to actually prepare, guys. Come on, let me out,” Stiles says, though it’s without any kind of authority. Without his alpha voice to back him up, his pack takes another couple of seconds to actually come apart, letting him out reluctantly. They wrap around Derek instead, and Stiles lets it happen, setting up the fold out tables by himself and looking to his pack fondly on occasion. He doesn’t know how to look at them without fondness, forgot how to years ago, even with Jackson or with Malia. Fondness seems to drip out of his very pores as an alpha, and he doesn’t want to be any other kind of alpha. 

“‘Saac, help me get the tables together. Cora, Malia, Erica, Boyd, get the extra chairs from the back room. Scott, get my wallet from my back pocket and wait for the pizza to get here. Allison, Kira and Derek, my known favorites, you three sit still and look pretty,” Stiles commands all of them. The last part is a blatant lie, given that Derek and Isaac, sometimes along with Erica, are his known favorites. Isaac pouts at him a little before starting with the table, and Erica fakes to jump on his back on her way to the back room. Allison and Kira grin at him before hopping onto the counter virtually at the same time, and Stiles goes back to his work. Derek follows his movements with his eyes and Stiles knows it, but it’s normal enough that he’s not even remotely worried about it. 

“These chairs are fucking heavy,” Erica announces, carrying five of them at once with relative ease. Stiles barely spares her a glance, rolling his eyes, and this time, after she puts down the chairs, Erica actually does jump on his back. He grins and pours some magic into keeping her up, just carrying her around as he places red solo cups down next to the sodas. It all looks very middle school dance, but it’s what they always do, and none of them are very good at change. Boyd carries in another six chairs and grabs his girlfriend off of Stiles’s back, carrying her bridal style to the back room, to her complaining. Stiles rolls his eyes again and makes quick eye contact with Isaac, gesturing for him to go join them. Isaac is queerplatonic with half of the pack, and he deserves to play with his qp partners if they’re playing. Isaac grins at him and runs off. 

“Gay!” Scott shouts after the lot of them from his station by the door, a common joke between the pack. Any kind of affection is given the moniker of gay, being as none of them are straight and all of them can take a fucking joke. Cora and Malia bring in five chairs each and sit on top of the piles, playfully shoving at each other to make the other fall. Another few minutes passes with little but giggling from the back, and Allison and Scott, Isaac’s actual official boyfriend and girlfriend, stand unworried. Stiles is in love with the peaceful nature of his pack, the fact that drama doesn’t permeate them anymore. A knock sounds on the door and Scott visibly startles, even though he must have heard the knocker through the door. Derek chuckles from his place in the corner, and Scott turns toward the door. 

“It’s pizza, not the pack. I’ve got it,” Scott says to Stiles, who had tensed in his place hovering above the table. Not literally hovering, though he could certainly manage it, but rather looking over the table with worry. Stiles resolutely does not think about Scott forking over damn near three hundred dollars for  _ pizza _ \- god, he hates feeding werewolves. He doesn’t know exactly how many members of the other pack are coming, and knowing how werewolves can eat, he just ordered twenty large pizzas. It’ll be gone by morning whether they bring five wolves or fifteen, knowing just how his own wolves can eat. Stiles and Allison can share a pizza and still have two or three pieces left over while the wolves eat at least six pieces each. They could probably handle any leftovers. 

“Kids!” Stiles calls, bringing Erica, Boyd and Isaac thundering down the hallway with only three chairs each. He raises a single eyebrow at them and all of their eyes hit the floor, not quite with guilt, as tinged as they are with laughter. He doesn’t take the time to rag on them, rather allowing them to spread out the chairs they had gathered. He really does have no idea exactly how many members of the baby pack are going to be coming around, and he’d rather have too many chairs than not enough. Isaac and Erica shove at each other, giggling still, and Boyd reaches out a hand to stop them before Stiles even thinks to ask him to; Stiles smiles at Boyd, showing his puppies his approval. Boyd flashes one of his rare, shy grins back. 

“Three blocks away. Just heard someone in the car say alpha. Guessing it’s not humans,” Malia informs them from her place on top of her pile of chairs. She has the best ears among them, assumably from her years actually shifted, and Stiles trusts her judgement. All of the weres tilt their heads in their puppylike way, listening to hear what Malia heard, while Allison and Stiles look on, just holding back laughter. Even Kira is tilting her head, and it’s even more adorable on her. They all seem to come back to themselves in the same moment, turning in a strangely in sync moment to look at Stiles. He tries not to feel put on the spot, and just stares back at the closest wolf, which happens to be Derek. 

“Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? You kids only have a few seconds to say anything you need to say,” Stiles prompts all of them, receiving a series of shaken heads. Isaac, instead of shaking his head, walks over to Stiles, tucking himself against his alpha’s chest briefly before pulling back. “You good, ‘saac?” Stiles asks quietly, finally getting a nod from the softest of his pack. He makes a gesture for Erica to come get Isaac instead of making the beta pull away on his own, and Erica pulls him into a hug with Boyd. Isaac isn’t the best with new people, and all of them know it. “We’re ready,” he says in a near whisper, assuring himself just as much as anyone else in the room. 

“Scott, get away from the door, let me and Stiles answer it,” Derek suggests, though it sounds less like a suggestion and more like a command. Scott complies even with his issues with authority, clearing a path for Stiles to approach the door. As the emissary, Derek goes first, to make first contact with another pack as slightly more neutral ground. He opens the door slowly as not to startle any of his own pack members. 

“Greetings Emissary Marlock, Alpha Marlock. Welcome to Beacon Hills,” Derek greets, his even civility showing through. Derek’s ability to keep his composure with unknown weres had made him a better candidate for emissary than Stiles, though they hadn’t intended for Stiles to become alpha in the power exchange. That was an expected and yet welcome surprise, being as exactly no one wanted Scott to be alpha, including Scott himself. 

“Greetings Alpha Hale. Shouldn’t it be your emissary who greets us?” the regal Alpha Marlock pipes up as she strolls through the door, her emissary moving to let her through. 

“My emissary did greet you, Alpha Marlock, or did you not notice?” Stiles replies, willing to let it just settle as a mistake. Both the Alpha and her emissary startle, as well as the three of her betas that Stiles can see behind her. He doesn’t let their shock rush to his head as pride, instead letting it flow out into his pack. He can see Isaac turning his head to cover a smile hastily out of the corner of his eye. Stiles is glad; Isaac needs to smile more. 

“But -” the Marlock emissary begins, only to be hushed quickly by his alpha. The Hale pack is by no means large, but their power to numbers ratio has been rumoured all over the state, Stiles knows. 

“Your alpha smells of spark, your emissary smells of wolf. What’s the reasoning of this?” Alpha Marlock demands. Her phrasing is painfully formal, like this is a meeting out of the mid nineteenth century rather than in this modern era. Stiles has set up meetings over text before, had interpack relations via skype call. The formality, at least, proves Stiles’s theory that everything they know about being a pack is from shitty werewolf versus vampire novels. He knows some perfectly nice vampires, thank you very much. 

“That would be because, I, the alpha, am a spark, and Derek, Emissary Hale, is a werewolf. Easy conclusion, no?” Stiles provides, his snarky attitude another reason why Derek is a better emissary that he ever would have been. Derek, speaking of, rolls his eyes fondly and looks deeply as if he’s considering shoving Stiles into a wall. Meanwhile, the Marlock emissary and alpha gock from the doorway. 

“I suppose it will be my duty as second to invite you in, seeing as my alpha and emissary were raised in a barn,” Scott breaks the tension, walking up between Derek and Stiles to open the door wider. “Come on in, guys, there’s pizza.” The alpha and emissary, followed by the rest of their pack, enter in what seems like a daze, already confused by their pack dynamics. They ain’t seen nothin’ yet. 

“How many of there are you? Wanna make sure we have enough chairs,” Isaac says directly to the alpha. Stiles stifles his pride, knowing how hard interacting with authority figures can be for Isaac sometimes. The alpha seems startled, again, to have been spoken to directly by a beta. 

“Thirty,” she says cooly, not making direct eye contact with Isaac. Stiles kinda wants to hit her. 

“Cool, we have one too many! Cora, you want two shortstack?” Isaac shoots the last bit at Cora while offering her a chair; she growls at him, but takes it. Some of the Marlock betas look around at the room as if expecting someone to jump out with a camera screaming about how the betas were just being punked. 

“There’s only ten of you?” one of the betas, a sweet looking brunette girl who can’t be a day over nineteen asks directly to Stiles. Both her alpha and her emissary shoot her a glare, but Stiles ignores them. Chairs are pulled out to eat, pizza boxes being passed around the table, and he still makes sure to reply directly to the small beta. 

“Well, Lydia and Jackson are at a charity gala tonight, but there’s only twelve of us. Is this all of Marlock pack?” he asks, making direct eye contact with the brunette. 

“We number thirty,” the alpha announces, preening. She’s got so much pride in her that  _ Stiles  _ can smell it, he only wonders how his werewolves are fairing. 

“I believe he asked your beta. What’s your name, beta?” Derek asks, taking up for Stiles as he always does, in exactly the way Stiles wanted him to do it. Stiles holds back his ugly grin at the way the other alpha sputters, and waits for the beta to answer. She kind of reminds him of Isaac. 

“I - I’m Dahlia,” she says quietly, and Stiles wonders in his angry way exactly how badly this alpha has managed to fuck up all of her betas. He hates her so much already, and he just doesn’t know how the rest of this meeting is going to go. 

“How long have you been an alpha, Alpha Marlock?” Stiles asks through his teeth, though his tone is the picture of civility. 

“Four months, Alpha Hale.” the alpha answers, looking cowed and confused. 

“And you have twenty eight betas?” Stiles asks, keeping his calm barely.  

“Twenty nine, Alpha Hale.”

“You didn’t count your emissary in your pack count? That’s not cool.”

“My apologies, Alpha Hale -” Alpha Marlock scrambles frantically, attempting not to offend the Hale pack. She’s gone a little far past that, but zero points for trying. Stiles is not going to be able to keep his cool much longer, and the entire pack can feel it, based on the buzzing beneath his skin. 

“Twenty nine betas in four months is not a healthy pack. How many did you turn yourself?” 

“All but four,” Alpha Marlock replies through her teeth and her sneer. 

“Is Dahlia one of the four?” 

“No, but -”

“We will have a treaty with you, but any betas who you turned without their willing consent have the option to move unto the Hale pack. Because I assume you turned some without their permission. You’re lucky we don’t contact hunters,” Stiles decides to say all of this on the fly, and he knows Derek is going to cut in. 

“Stiles,” Derek cuts in, hand on Stiles’s arm. 

“Don’t threaten, I got it,” he says automatically. 

“You will not deplete our numbers -” Alpha Marlock starts, and Stiles cuts back in before she gets too far onto her high horse. 

“How many did you turn without their direct, informed consent, Alpha Marlock?” he asks in a deadpan, because he knows he’s not going to like the number. 

“Sixteen.” 

“Then sixteen will have another option. Deal or no deal?” he offers. His stomach rebels and he puts down his pizza, picking it back up nearly immediately so it won’t look bad. He wants to punch something, and punching something isn’t even really his gig. He doesn’t want to magic punch anything, he just won’t to bare knuckles crack open like - a wall, or something, he doesn’t care much for what. 

“Deal,” the Marlock Alpha replies nearly immediately, and Stiles is glad she knows at least how to make  _ one  _ good decision. 

“Alpha -” her emissary tries, but she interrupts again, as seems to be commonplace for her. 

“I said deal, Wesley,” she says rudely. 

“Treat your emissary with respect. You haven’t been an alpha long. I’ve been an alpha for actual  _ years. _ It’s only harder if you don’t respect your pack,” Stiles tells her impatiently. He’s up at midnight for some rudeass alpha with issues. 

“Sixteen have options. Take it or leave it.” 

“I’ll take it. Dahlia, you have the first choice. Hale pack, or stay where you are?” he offers it first to her, because she seems like she needs it. 

“You would take me in the Hale pack?” she asks, soft with awe, and Stiles feels something in his stomach  _ roll. _ What did they do to her? 

“Of course. Why wouldn’t we?” Scott asks from down the table, his shoulders rigid and ready to defend whatever came along. 

“I’m -” she starts, but is stopped. 

“She’s our omega,” Alpha Marlock interrupts with her little superior smirk, and Stiles is going to lose his shit. 

“An omega is a werewolf - or any other kind of were - without a pack. What you’re thinking of is an archaic human misunderstanding of how wolves of any kind work,” Derek explains with a calmness to him that Stiles knows he could not replicate at the moment. He’s going to lose his shit. The eating around the table is sluggish and distracted, watching the conversation like an actually interesting tennis match. Like a hockey game or something, like a soccer game. The metaphor is getting away from him, and Stiles needs to focus back on the conversation. 

“What do you mean ‘other kind of were’?” the Marlock emissary asks, head tilted so like Stiles’s pups that he doesn’t hate the emissary nearly as much as he hates the alpha. There’s so much they simply do not know. 

“Malia, of our pack, is a werecoyote. Kira is a kitsune, which has been called, by some cultures, a werefox. There’s an entire pack in Washington of werebears, and another in Oregon of wereotters in the rivers. Anyway, I ever catch wind of you treating one of your wolves like shit because you believe in some archaic omega shit -” 

“ _ Stiles _ ,” Derek cuts in again, actually holding Stiles’s hand this time, interrupting both of them eating. Stiles can actually put down his food down this time, so he’s okay with Derek grabbing his hand. He’s okay with Derek grabbing his hand anyway, to be fair. 

“No threats, I totally got it, Der, promise,” Stiles replies, letting the tension leak out of his shoulders. He watches as some of his own betas relax with him. Now he kinda feels like shit, offering out packship to other wolves without asking the rest of his kids. “Is every Hale pack member alright with more kids?” he asks down the table, and then remembers. “Isaac, can you text Lydia and Jax to ask them too?” Isaac nods and pulls out his phone, unlocking it and going to the group chat nearly faster than Stiles can follow. He had taken really well to having his own cell phone when Stiles had made Derek get Isaac one years ago. 

“Your beta runs relations with the rest of your pack?” one of the Marlock betas says, eyes immediately shooting to look at his alpha. The Marlock Alpha seems to have realised that a reaction of anger at  _ speaking out of turn _ will garner no Hale respect. It’s a good conclusion, because Stiles is about to lose his shit. 

“It’s usually Isaac over text, yeah - he texts the fastest. If it’s a phone call, it’s usually me or Stiles though; we talk the fastest,” Scott answers, his voice all sunshine as he puts his hand on Isaac’s shoulder with a grin. One of the other betas lights up like a Christmas tree and, swear to all the Gods who would listen, raises her hand. 

“You can just talk, you know. It’s fine,” Erica says, reaching a hand across the table to lightly put the girl’s hand down. She doesn’t quite flinch back, but she has the biggest eyes Stiles has ever seen. 

“I’m - I’m Jenny, and I would like to choose the Hale pack, if - if Jackson and Lydia are okay with it. I can cook, and I can take care of kids, and I text fast!” she gushes, her hands going beneath the table to assumably smooth out her skirt. Stiles smiles at her gentle, dipping his head in a sort of bow. He nods at her, and then turns to the alpha. 

“Why does your beta think she needs to present me with a resume to enter my pack?” Stiles asks, saccharine sweet, truly unpleasant to look at. The alpha looks coldly at Jenny, but tempers down her anger in a moment’s notice. 

“Those are her roles in the pack, ones I imagine the  _ Hale  _ pack does not prescribe to,” she says, clenching her jaw as she speaks. Stiles raises his eyebrows, ready to bite back, but Derek puts a hand on his wrist, staying the execution. 

“No pack that I have ever seen that was older than two years has prescribed to roles in a pack. My mother ran a pack from before I was born until I was sixteen, and she never had anyone pushed into roles that she decided for them, nor even that they could have decided for themselves. Everyone was expected to do as they pleased, and what helped the back, but definitely in that order. If one doesn’t have children, and one doesn’t want to take care of children, one  _ doesn’t  _ take care of children,” Derek explains, calm and clear, though the edge of his voice is wolfish in nature. 

“Oh,” one of the betas down the row says, as if it’s the ultimate revelation, and Stiles’s heart hurts for them, for all of them. Derek sighs, looking down the row at Isaac, who smiles. 

“Jax and Lyds are cool for the summer. Just wanna know how many before the end of the night so Lyds can take people shopping as a bonding experience,” Isaac provides, though his smile drops almost immediately. He’s not too good with energies, and he’s playing with his water bottle rather rapidly. Scott is stimming under the table, even Stiles can see it, and this has to end soon. 

“Then, we’re done here. Marlock betas who would like to switch, you may stay. Marlock pack members who intend to remain as such, please leave in the next ten minutes. We will strike a treaty with you, but Lydia will be negotiating it at a later date,” Derek says, and it takes the energy of most of the pack to not visibly wince. Everyone knows that Derek only sends their banshee when the pack they’re dealing with sucks, and she’s mean enough to talk anyone down off the wall. The Marlock alpha and emissary both simply nod and stand, heading toward the exit. 

“Well?” the alpha asks, and about ten werewolves stand, leaving somewhere between thirteen and eighteen seated. Marlock doesn’t even try to convince her betas to follow, simply taking her leave and letting the remaining remain as they were. A quiet falls over the room and Stiles looks to Malia, letting her be the indicator to the rest of the pack. She doesn’t say anything, but digs into her pizza. She nods to him once she stops hearing the Marlock pack in the distance. 

“Okay! Introductions, phone numbers, if you want to move, if you need help moving, and what you did with the Marlock pack can be exchanged with the pack member nearest to you! Have all the pizza you want, and talk to me directly if you want, because we do not do that bullshit I just witnessed,” Stiles says, breaking the silence after about three minutes of the Marlock pack driving away. The newbies immediately break into excited chatter, to each other and to the Hale pack members, but Dahlia is the one to approach Stiles first, Jenny directly on her heels. 

“So, if we needed somewhere to stay, would you guys help me find some place?” Dahlia asks, cautious as she rubs her hands over her sleeves. Stiles nods, giving her an honest, open smile. Jenny strikes up a conversation with Derek, whose dulcet tones seem to calm her fraying nerves. The emissary has that effect on people. 

“Definitely. You can stay in the pack house for a while, if you want,” Stiles offers, shrugging a shoulder. “We’ve all stayed in it at some point, though only me and Der and Isaac really live in it permanently. Even Isaac only half lives with us,” Stiles teases, knowing the wolf will hear him. 

“Hey! I half live with everyone, you’re not special!” Isaac calls across the table, half a bite of pizza still in his mouth. Stiles flips him off naturally, shooting him a grin; he’s always glad for Isaac’s cheekiness, knowing it doesn’t always come to him easily. 

“He just talks to you like that, alpha?” Dahlia asks, tilting her head. Stiles snorts. Erica winces. 

“Please do not ever call him that ever ever again that’s so gross,” she says, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she cringes. Allison laughs, but slides down the table a few seats, leaning on Stiles’s shoulder. 

“Did Marlock expect you to call her alpha whenever you addressed her?” she asked, honestly curiosity spilling out of her voice. Stiles knows that she’s also thinking about whether to call her Dad on the Marlock pack, but he’s not gonna out her for that. 

“If I ever addressed her. I was supposed to call her alpha just in conversation,” Dahlia explains, and Stiles grimaces. 

“Gross! Okay, so, yeah, don’t call me alpha, you can stay in the pack house, I’ll be more comfortable if you talk shit to me, and I would actually kill a man for any one of my betas, so don’t you ever worry about your place here. You are not at risk of getting kicked out so long as you’re not a shit person. Like, don’t kick any puppies or kill any faeries and we should be cool,” Stiles explains, scrubbing a hand over his face frustratedly before giving Dahlia a smile. Dahlia lit up. 

“Faeries are real?!” she asked, hands flapping excitedly. Stiles and Allison look at each other briefly, thinking about all the things they can show their new betas. 

“Oh, this’ll be fun!” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked that fun shit!
> 
> Prompt me @halfwheeze on tumblr.


End file.
